john.williams's recent posts

Week 26: Trying to get started again

I love travelling, but for some time now that has not been possible, initially because I suffered a life-changing head injury and now because I am taking care of a 92-year-old relative. But I can watch youtube, and the most fun travel vlog I have seen is Drew Binsky's. After having stopped his travels for several months because of covid, he has just posted a video from Hatay, Turkey.

I love almost everywhere I have been in Turkey, but my favorite places are the the eastern Black Sea coast, the city of Urfa, the city of Mersin and Hatay province - I love Antakya, the capital of Hatay, so much that since 1980 I have been there about 15 times. The people, the culture, the food, the history, the architecture, the natural beauty - there is just nothing about Antakya that I don't love.  

Hatay province was once a part of Syria but became a part of Turkey in 1939. The province is a mix of both cultures. The diversity is made even greater because of the the mix of Sunni Turks and Arabs, Alevi Arabs, Orthodox Christian Arabs and a smattering of Sunni Kurds (with just a few Roman Catholics thrown in for good measure). The covered bazaar in Antakya can't compare to those is Aleppo or Damascus, but the hummus, kunufe and shwarma are even better than those in Syria or Lebanon (imho). So without further introduction, here is Mr. Binsky's video from Hatay - a bit disappointing considering how much there is to do in the city, but one full of great memories nonetheless.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZtD8BNvUiQ

Just about the only thing about Turkey I don't much like is the pop music, so here are some sunny, cheery songs from north eastern Africa to blow away the covid blues.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDOYMpS6N9E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjUlUsqYT7g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4v_9pf_tc8Y

Week 23: A2/B1 Turkish reading

It's been a struggle finding time for Turkish, but I did manage to read three children's books. All three were useful but the last one was both most enjoyable and most difficult.

Nilgun Ilgaz - Cocukluk Limanima Siginan Foklar

Bilgin Adali - Zaman Bisikleti

Sevim Ak - Ucurtmam Bulut Simdi

And here's another music video for when my brain is overheating:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXoVIW6JflI

Week 22: A2/B1 Turkish reading

Hi Tombik. I might take you up on the offer to chat later, but for now my time is so limited that I need to stick to just reading and listening. Thanks.

At the start of this project the plan was to use only what was available for free on the internet, but the time has arrived for a break from internet reading. so I've bought some books. They're kids' books so what can I say - they try a bit too hard to be cute, but so far they have been very useful and mildly interesting, and they were used so they weren't very expensive. For an A2 learner they might be a bit of a slog, but for a low to mid B1 learner they are more like reading than studying. 

Richard and Florence Atwater - Boyacinin Penguenleri

Erich Kastner - Noktacik ile Anton

And here are links to two more music videos that make a nice break from studying:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbKNVfZcWts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ch6gcWrekrE

Week 21: Nothing to do with Turkish

No new materials to post this week as I am recycling previously used materials for review. However, here are links to two nice Arabic music videos that have been released in the last few weeks. What does this have to do with learning Turkish? Nothing, but I hope somebody out there enjoys the music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rh1c_DzpCm8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGYh57mlBcQ

Week 20: A2/B1 Turkish reading

When I started this project, I had hoped to reach a solid B2 level in reading and listening within 12 months. Although that might still be possible, it no longer seems like a good idea. For the project to remain fun and not become too tiring (and not encroach on time I need for other things) . it seems like a good idea to stick with A2 materials for a bit longer and get to the point where I can use them almost effortlessly, processing grammar and much of the vocabulary automatically. 

During this period of consolidation, I probably won't use any new listening materials, instead revisiting previously used materials, sometimes redoing them as dictation or listen-and-repeat exercises.

Reading will also consist mostly of reviewing previously used materials, but for a bit of a challenge I will also use these A2/B1 children's articles from the Milliyet newspaper's website:

https://www.milliyet.com.tr/cocuk/

And I will also continus with the grammar lessons at the elon.io site. These lessons have turned out to be a really good review of most of the basic grammar. In fact once I have finished all the lessons, I might go back and redo lessons 100-181.

https://elon.io/learn-turkish/lessons

Then in two or three months the push for a solid B1 level will begin (I hope). I've already found lots of good materials but need to resist the temptation to use them until I am ready to make the most out of them.

Weeks 18 and 19: Turkish A2 listening and reading

Here are two playlists from the Ali Yilmaz youtube channel. The first is about basic grammar and is good for basic listening comprehension. The second one introduces a number of verbs - the speaking is faster and it is more fun to listen to.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiZmHvJy_nJ-HdQuT92GeoDlVDLXsXsax

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiZmHvJy_nJ8KqO_eFClo0zegaWSNfM9M

And here are two more Harun Yahya booklets. These are longer booklets but consist of lots of very short stories.

https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=https://hy-kitap.githu

https://hy-kitap.github.io/viewer/web/viewer.html?file=https://hy-kitap.

And finally, here is a web page with links for lots more Harun Yahya books. These are longer and probably suitable for high A2 or B1 learners.

His books have been very useful but I'm a bit tired of his style, so it's probably time for me to move on to something else for a bit.

https://harunyahya-kitap.github.io

Week 17: A2 Turkish listening

Here are four more videos from the Ali Yilmaz channel on youtube. They are a bit slow , but you can always change the playback speed.

Tereyag

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XesYaAbNukc

Alzheimer's Disease

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18d0J6fAqhw

Tennis player

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYO9_xGUTS8

Zebra

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O62e5Q7Ed9o

Week 16: A2 Turkish reading

Harun Yahya booklet about ants

Merhaba arkadaşlar. Yine bir Harun Yahya hikayesi ile karşınızdayım. Bu seferki hikayenin adı “Küçük Dostlarımız Karıncaların Dünyası.” Tabii ki karıncaların yaşantısını ve özelliklerini anlatıyor. Çocuklar için yazılmış ama hikayenin büyükler için de faydası var - yani Türkçe öğrenmek isteyen büyükler için.

Bağlantı aşağıdadır. Mutlu okumalar.

https://hy-kitap.github.io/viewer/web/viewer.html?file=https://hy-kitap.github.io/assets/Harun-Yahya-Kitaplar/KK/pdf/kucukDostlarimizKarincalarinDunyasi_4b_tr.pdf

Week 15: A2 Turkish listening

Here are four videos for practice listening at the A2 level, some with subtitles, some without, and some spoken quite a bit more slowly than others.

Three of the videos are from Ali Yilmaz's youtube channel, which has quite a few videos at the A2 level.

Cimri

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9LTL34ctBQ

Turkish for foreigners A2 level

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arqex_V2h-o

A Nasrettin Hoca story

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkIzpCNEV1c

Two Farmer Brothers story

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bz-GO_Ou52s

Week 14: A2 Turkish reading

Another Harun Yahya children's book

I haven't had time to do much except for reviewing things I had previously listened to, but here is a link to a Harun Yahya book about honey bees,

https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=https://hy-kitap.github.io/assets/Harun-Yahya-Kitaplar/KK/odt/balarisicocuk3bsk.odt

Week 13: A2 Turkish reading

A Harun Yahya children's book

Harun Yahya/Adnan Oktar has a youtube channel and websites all over the internet. In his materials for children, his mission seems to be to promote intelligent design and to refute Darwinism. Whatever you think of his beliefs, his children's books make good study materials for language learners at the A2 and B1 levels. Here is a link to a flip book about beavers for learners at the A2 level.

Hmm, the link didn't work. If you go to issuu.com and type in 'harun yahya', you should get a page with lots of books. It might not be worth your while, but you can scroll down the page and look for the book covers that look like children's books - they are pretty easy to spot. There are also lots of other books that are useful but they are mostly at a B1 level.

I'll try one more time - let's see if this link goes to the book.  

https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=https://hy-kitap.github.io/assets/Harun-Yahya-Kitaplar/BB/odt/becerikliBarajInsaatcilariKunduzlar_5b_tr.odt

Week 12: A2 Turkish listening

7 Niloya story books on youtube

The "Niloya" cartoon series is popular in Turkey and some other countries. I don't like the squeaky cartoon voices but if they don't bother you there are lots of episodes on youtube. If you don't like squeaky voices either, here is a link to seven "Niloya" storybooks with text and audio.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyhMzyW9Hd-3uAGPjsufO7QK4nhYVnWy_

Week 11: A2 Turkish reading

7 easy storybooks from acevokuloncesi.org

This has been a busy week so I mostly reviewed older material, but here is a link to some short storybooks for children. I only read "Televizyoncu Ali", which is probably at the A2 level. The other books are all easier.

https://www.acevokuloncesi.org/kaynak-dokumanlar/hikaye-kitaplari/

Week 10: A2 Turkish listening

Bookbox Turkish

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiHbkNfR11_ZdhrBXTyvd_Q

This youtube channel has seven children's videos in Turkish, each about six minutes long. The audio is a bit slow, but the quality is very good and there are subtitles. There are also videos in other languages, including several Indian ones.

Week 9: A2 Turkish reading

I'm not afraid of earthquakes

https://www.isbank.com.tr/bankamizi-taniyin/Documents/hakkimizda/kurumsal_sosyal_sorumluluk/depremden_korkmuyorum.pdf

This is a short book provided by the Turkish Is Bankasi that explains earthquakes to school children.

Week 8: A2 Turkish listening

Cevko Cocuk videos

Two weeks ago I provided a link to the Cevko Cocuk site, where there are downloadable booklets about recycling for first through fourth grade pupils. Below is a link to videos on the same topic. There are no subtitles, so if you haven't read at least the first booklet and learned the vocabulary, these will be fairly challenging. 

https://www.cevkococuk.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=16&Itemid=143

Unfortunately, as is the case with so many videos embedded on sites, these videos don't play very smoothly, so, here is a link to some of the same videos on youtube. These provide a much better listening experience. The first video in the playlist is an episode from a children's cartoon series. It is more difficult than the Cevko Cocuk videos but has subtitles.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLULlBUyY5bb0SmozzdzaqUvKuRHCgN7i8

Week 7: A1 - B2 Turkish grammar

Online Language School

https://elon.io

This site has a very comprehensive presentation of Turkish grammar from A1 to B1/B2 levels. There are 181 lessons, each with exercises. I am finding this very easy to use and very useful.

There are also lessons for Spanish, Japanese and several other topics.

Hi Nurgul. Thanks for stopping by. Maybe in a few months I will we able to write some simple posts in Turkish. But I am kind of a slow learner, so it might take longer than that.

Week 6: A1/A2 Turkish reading materials

Cevko Cocuk

https://www.cevkococuk.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=9&Itemid=103

This link takes you to the Cevko Cocuk site. There are two booklets about recycling that can be downloaded as PDFs. The book for first and second grade students has a lot of vocabulary that might be new, but overall it is not too difficult. The booklet for third and fourth grade students has the same information but is definitely more challenging to read.

Hi Michel. Thanks for the heads up about Language Transfer.

Week 5: A1/A2 Turkish listening material

Turkish class 101 beginner listening practice 

 https://www.youtube.com/user/TurkishClass101/playlists

This youtube channel has a playlist of 18 short dialogues for beginners. The audio is a bit slow but good quality. There is lots of good basic grammar here. There are subtitles, so these work well for dictation or listen and repeat. If the beginner dialogues are a bit too challenging, there is also a playlist of dialogues for absolute beginners (as well as playlists for intermediate and advanced practice).

There are also dialogues available in a number of other languages. This is a fairly limited resource, but worth checking out regardless of what language you are learning.

Week 4: A1 Turkish grammar

FC Langmedia grammar lessons

Five Colleges/Langmedia has a playlist of 58 grammar lessons on youtube. Most of them are 3 to 6 minutes long. They are good for learning or reviewing vowel harmony and verb forms. I was a bit disappointed as I was hoping for some discussion of verb usage but the focus is almost entirely on form. If you are a true beginner, these are all useful. If you are a false beginner, you will probably want to pick and choose which videos to watch.

Hi Michel

You pose two interesting questions.  

As for English retaining its status a a lingua franca, although the domestic and geopolitical decisions made by the United States and Britain over the last couple of years will probably make both countries increasingly less relevant on the world stage, English is pretty deeply embedded as a language of media, entertainment and science, so it will probably be a good language to know for a while yet.

As for the second question, climate change is only one of the imminent challenges we face, but we are about to go over a cliff with climate change, setting into motion a number of irreversible feedback loops. If you like language learning, then by all means continue. But it would be a good idea to devote part of your time to staying as physically and mentally fit and healthy as possible, developing self reliance while also building strong community bonds, learning practical skills for the new world, and becoming an activist.

Excuse me for answering your post in English, but my French isn't good enough to write a decent post.

Hi Clayton, thanks for stopping by. You asked how things are going as a false beginner. It's still early days, but being a false beginner is definitely much easier and more rewarding than being a beginner. The progress is much quicker, it's easier to remember new vocabulary, and it's much easier to notice how grammar is used to convey meaning.

Week 3: A1/A2 Turkish reading material

Hubert the farmer booklets

https://mediathek.fnr.de/broschuren/fremdsprachige-publikationen/turk.html

This link is to a site sponsored by a German agency for renewable resources. There are three short story booklets that can be downloaded. In the booklets Hubert the farmer introduces his two young friends to the concept of renewable resources. The booklets are aimed at 7 to 9 year olds and are also available in several other languages.

Healthy eating booklets

https://www.mustafa-turan.com/urun/MEB-Hikaye-Kitapları-2829

This link takes you to a site that allows you to download four booklets provided by the Turkish Ministry of Education. The slightly silly stories extol the virtues of eating lots of fruit and vegetables. These are also aimed at 7 to 9 year olds.

Elif story booklets

https://www.yemektedenge.org/okul-oncesi-hikaye-kitaplari

This last link is to a site sponsored by the Sabri Ulker Foundation (as in Ulker chocolates). There are three downloadable story booklets for 7 to 9 year olds that stress the importance of a balanced diet. The stories are sappy but short enough that they are tolerable, and they have lots of vocabulary and sentence structure that will help move your Turkish along. There are also downloadable videos but the sound quality isn't great.

Week 2: A1/A2 listening materials

I have been using the following two sets of materials from the lingq site.

Lingq Mini Stories Turkish

These are very short stories for beginners. Although they are simple, they effectively introduce a lot of very useful grammar and vocabulary. The audio is very clear, read at a good speed and can be downloaded as MP3s. There is a transcript for each story. These stories are available in a number of languages.

 Lingq Ayse and Ali

This is a very short set of texts with more basic grammar and vocabulary. The audio is good quality and can be downloaded as MP3s. Again there are transcripts. Both this set of texts and the mini stories work well for dictaiton or listen-and-repeat exercises.

Week 1: A1/A2 Turkish reading materials

Here is a link to an online magazine for 3-6 year old native Turkish speakers. The site is sponsored by the Turkish Is Bank.

https://minikumbaradergisi.com

If you click on "Dunyamiz" at the top of the page, you will be directed to about 40 very short articles about animals and the natural world.

They are a good review of basic grammar and vocabulary.

The following link is to the same site, but takes you to a magazine for 6-8 year olds.

Click on "Bilim ve Yasam" at the top of the page to be directed to the articles.  

These are also about animals and the natural world. They are more challenging but still fairly easy.

https://kumbaradergisi.com/hosgeldiniz

Hello everyone.

I've decided to finally try to get somewhere with my Turkish.

Background: Once upon a time I visited Turkey fairly often and, because the Turks are generally so hospitable and accommodating, let myself believe that my Turkish was not too bad. After several years away from the language, a recent day spent browsing Turkish websites led me to realize that my Turkish really isn't very good at all.

The plan: Some years ago I did the Assimil course, so I have a reasonable grasp of the basic grammar. Now I plan to start over as a false beginner, focusing for at least the first few months on intensive reading and listening. I plan to use mostly materials that have been produced for native Turkish speaking children, using whatever free and legal materials are available on secure websites - and as it turns out there are lots of good materials for the A! to B! levels (or I should probably say for 4 to 12 year old native speakers). I'll post links to useful materials.

Outlook: Well, for some time now life has been fairly complicated and recently it has become even more so, so this project will probably move along pretty slowly. Wish me luck - I will need it,